IBDP ESS

Notes
The evolution of the beak of the finch

During Charles Darwin’s journey on HMS Beagle from 1831 to 1836, he spent five weeks on the
Galápagos Islands in 1835. Although his visit was short, the observations Darwin made and what he
concluded about how evolution works made his trip one of the most famous events in the history of
science.

When Darwin first encountered the finches, he collected and categorized them into three distinct
groups: blackbirds, wrens, and finches. After he returned to England, he presented his specimens to
one of Britain’s leading ornithologists, John Gould. Gould identified all the birds as belonging to a
single group, based on their anatomy and colourings, rather than several groups as Darwin had
thought. Darwin was struck by the fact that although the birds were all finches according to Gould,
the sizes and shapes of their beaks were remarkably different, as different as those of birds from
different taxonomic groups on various continents. In a particularly evocative phrase in his book The
Voyage of the Beagle, Darwin wrote: “Seeing this gradation and diversity of structure in one small,
intimately related group of birds, one might really fancy that from an original paucity of birds in this
archipelago, one species had been taken and modified for different ends.”

His discovery of the finches, along with other evidence he had gathered during his voyage, all
pointed toward one conclusion: All the various species were not created in their current forms but
have instead evolved through natural, undirected processes. Darwin famously took many years to
publish his ideas about how species form and his theory of evolution through natural selection. On
the Origin of Species was published in 1858—only after Darwin received a letter from Alfred Russel
Wallace independently outlining the same ideas.

Fast-forward to 1973, over 100 years after Darwin wrote his revolutionary ideas, when Peter and
Rosemary Grant travelled for the first time to the Galápagos Islands to study variability among
finches within and among populations. By then, the theory of evolution was no longer questioned by
scientists but accepted as a central unifying principle in biology. However, biologists were continuing
to investigate and ask questions about the processes that drive evolutionary change. For example,
what roles do competition, genetics, and the environment play? How do these factors work together
to produce the variety of species in existence today as well as those we have discovered in the fossil
record? Forty years of research on the Galápagos finches has helped provide some of the answers.

Naturalists from Charles Darwin to E.O. Wilson have marvelled at the incredible number and
diversity of species on Earth. Understanding why there are so many species on our planet is an active
area of current research. The Origin of Species: The Beak of the Finch follows Princeton University
biologists Peter and Rosemary Grant as they study the finches endemic to the Galápagos Islands.
Their work, conducted over the course of four decades, shows how geography and ecology can both
drive the evolution of new species.
 IBDP ESS
Notes
Summary of the Key Concepts:

 Habitats and ecological niches are constantly changing; even entire ecosystems change over
time. New species can arise as populations adapt to changes and new opportunities in the
environment.
 Newly formed islands provide many new habitats for species to occupy. In the Galápagos
Islands, a single ancestral population of finches has given rise to 13 separate species, each
adapted to different habitats and niches.
 An adaptation is a structure or function that confers greater ability to survive and reproduce
in a particular environment.
 When two groups within one species become geographically isolated—separated by a
physical barrier, such as a river, canyon, or mountain range—genetic changes in one group
will not be shared with members of the other, and vice versa. Over many generations, the
two groups diverge as their traits change in different ways.
 For two groups to become distinct species, traits must change in ways that will keep
members of each group reproductively isolated, meaning that they will not mate or produce
fertile offspring with members of the other group even if they come to be in the same
geographic location.
 Evolutionary change can occur rapidly, in only a few generations, if there is genetic variation
among individuals in a population and if natural selection acting on this variation is strong.
However, major change, such as the origin of new species, often takes many thousands of
generations.

As you are watching the video try to answer the following questions:

1. What evidence did scientists use to determine that all 13 species of finches on the Galapagos
have one common ancestor?

2. How did the population of medium ground finches on island of Daphne Major change as the
result of environmental changes?

3. Does evolution happen quickly or slowly?

4. What is the definition of a species?

5. What two characteristics played a role in reproductively isolating ground finches?

6. How did one ancestral population give rise to many species, each with different
adaptations?